The consensus forecast of economists for February was for a much smaller fall of just 0.2%.

On a year-on-year basis manufacturing also fell a lot more steeply than expected. It fell by 1.8% against an expected 0.7%.

Industrial production was not much better, falling 0.5% year-on-year and 0.3% month-on-month. That came against forecasts of a flat figure of 0% growth, and a 0.1% gain.

Here's the ONS' chart:

ONS

The figures suggest that January's data, released at the start of March, was something of a blip, as an "unusually warm spell in January meant that demand for heating was lower than usual" according to Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Manufacturing production grew by 0.7% month-on-month in January 2016, beating analysts' estimates of a 0.2% rise. This gave some hope that Britain's manufacturing sector, which has been in the doldrums of late, was recovering, but that looks to have been misplaced.